Markos points out what everyone has been writing for days. With 1,000 or so delegates remaining to be won before yesterday, Hillary may have picked up 2. One-third of the total remaining delegates were on the table, and she got 2 (so far). If she keeps going at this pace, after yesterday "huge" victory, she can get 4 more before the race is over. That does nothing to get her any closer to the 157 delegates she needs to overtake Obama. From Markos:
So total for the night, thus far, is Clinton 187 186 and Obama 185. Not all votes are in, so things will change a bit. But at this point, we have a ridiculously tiny one-delegate lead for Clinton for the night, which could either produce her first delegate victory of the election, or be erased by the rest of the still-not-reported Texas caucuses.
Now according to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, Obama entered the race with a 159 pledged delegate lead. So with some luck, Clinton ends the night about ... 157 delegates behind.
More problematic for Clinton, is that today's 370 delegates were about 38 percent of the just-shy of 1,000 remaining delegates before Tuesday's contests. That means we just had over 1/3rd of the remaining delegates allocated, with only marginal-to-none gains in the count for Clinton.
So Clinton is running out of states, and even her "big" victory Tuesday is proving little more than a pyrrhic victory.
She can't win. But she can ensure that Obama is so bloodied, to use Rush Limbaugh's description of the Clinton strategy, that Obama is damaged goods come the fall. After all, if Hillary can't get the nomination, then nobody should. While I respect the arguments that the lengthy primary process has skyrocketed Democratic turnout and organizing, it's also tearing us and our candidates apart. And get ready for Team Clinton to go even more negative after last night. That means more racism and more made-for-GOP-TV statements about how John McCain is the most experienced candidate for president.
